[Solved] Error : The file or folder path /Probl?me 1 does not exist

Question

Hello,
I encountered this error
The file or folder <path>/Probl?me 2 does not exist
while I was trying to open a directory already extracted from a zip file containing directories with special characters. In this case, it is a "è" that was misinterpreted as a "?".
I searched the forums and on google, the solutions proposed do not work for me. Although, I have to deal with these files written in french, I would like to have my locale in english (US), with a system wide support for special characters.
Attempt 1: Adding the option : iocharset=utf8 into the fstab, like this :
fstab :
# /etc/fstab: static file system information
# <file system> <dir> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>
none /dev/pts devpts defaults 0 0
none /dev/shm tmpfs defaults 0 0
/dev/cdrom /media/cd auto ro,user,noauto,unhide 0 0
/dev/dvd /media/dvd auto ro,user,noauto,unhide 0 0
/dev/fd0 /media/fl auto user,noauto 0 0
/dev/disk/by-uuid/24ba75ac-e52d-40eb-a599-83b394b500b2 /boot ext2 defaults 0 2
/dev/disk/by-uuid/c797f409-00bc-479a-b4d6-ab49943f644b / ext4 defaults 0 1
/dev/disk/by-uuid/668427a8-5f51-42bd-a316-fc7984bf5f4f /var ext4 defaults 0 2
/dev/sda7 swap swap defaults 0 0
/dev/disk/by-uuid/417cd1b7-8f06-414b-84d5-e8714d9646ab /home ext4 defaults 0 2
/dev/disk/by-uuid/ef9aa00e-0515-4d7b-aa23-8096e787250d /usr ext4 defaults 0 2
/dev/disk/by-uuid/17d401b7-2fc7-4d9f-8e17-657d86926d2e /tmp ext4 defaults,iocharset=utf8 0 0 <<<<<<<<<<<<<<
/dev/disk/by-uuid/71e543b6-e06c-4b0e-b1e3-3b491ff1fefe /var/cache/pacman/repos ext4 defaults 0 2
#/dev/sda12 /mnt/archive ext4 defaults 0 2
#.host:/ /mnt/hgfs vmhgfs defaults 0 0
This solution does not work, because after adding iocharset=utf8, in front or after a "defaults", after a reboot, while mounting the filesystem, there is the following error message:
Mounting Locale Filesystem :
mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/sdb1,
missing codepage or helper program, or other error
In some cases useful info is found in syslog - try
dmesg | tail or so
$ dmesg | tail
phy0: Selected rate control algorithm 'iwl-agn-rs'
EXT4-fs (sda5): re-mounted. Opts: (null)
EXT4-fs (sda5): re-mounted. Opts: (null)
EXT4-fs (sda6): mounted filesystem with ordered data mode. Opts: (null)
EXT4-fs (sda8): mounted filesystem with ordered data mode. Opts: (null)
EXT4-fs (sda9): mounted filesystem with ordered data mode. Opts: (null)
EXT4-fs (sda10): Unrecognized mount option "iocharset=utf8" or missing value <<<<<<<<<<<<<<
EXT4-fs (sda11): mounted filesystem with ordered data mode. Opts: (null)
Adding 2104476k swap on /dev/sda7. Priority:-1 extents:1 across:2104476k
tg3 0000:07:00.0: irq 44 for MSI/MSI-X
Attempt 2: Changing all the locale features in KDE and in /etc/rc.conf as well.
$ vim /etc/rc.conf
LOCALE="fr_CA.utf8"
HARDWARECLOCK=""
TIMEZONE="America/Montreal"
KEYMAP="us"
CONSOLEFONT=
CONSOLEMAP=
USECOLOR="yes"
It is complicated to remove these directories. I had to use the inum to get precisely these directories before removing them.
$ ls -il
total 8
1577566 drwxr-xr-x 2 [username] [username] 4096 28 jan 07:09 Probl?me 1
1577573 drwxr-xr-x 2 [username] [username] 4096 28 jan 07:09 Probl?me 2
$ find . -inum 1577566 -exec rm -i {} \;
rm: impossible de supprimer « ./Probl\212me 1 »: est un dossier
Note that the hypothetical character 'è' is represented has a '\212', a 'È' if seen as a extended ASCII character.
These directories cannot be deleted this way :
$ rm -r Problème\ 1
rm: cannot remove `Problème 1': No such file or directory
or
$ rm -r ProblÈme\ 1
rm: cannot remove `ProblÈme 1': No such file or directory
What should I do to be make the operating system recognize those special character, and interpret them correctly ?
Last edited by ramboman (2011-01-29 21:45:50)

Answer 1

I found a working solution, but better solution are also welcome
I had to have fr_CA not only in utf8 but also in iso88591. I had to modify the /etc/rc.conf this way :
LOCALE="fr_CA" <<<<<<<<<<<<<<
HARDWARECLOCK=""
TIMEZONE="America/Montreal"
KEYMAP="us"
CONSOLEFONT=
CONSOLEMAP=
USECOLOR="yes"
To preserve the english US language system wide, I had to add the following line in the /etc/profile :
# Allow french special character while in en_US
export LANG=en_US
The character misinterpreted by a "?" is now seen :
as a "è" in dolphin
as a "?" in the console
It is now possible to access the folders.